To Dive Again and Other Poems
by Alexis Ragan
To Dive Again
I once was a desert by my own doing.
Dried myself of fountains given
drinking waters fermented
from the Fall.
Strange, this illusion of life wading
in the shallows, the sand dunes,
of some “paradise” pool glossed
by murky dissonance.
The hydration here would fade.
It is always apparent in the back
of wrinkled resident’s heads —
this longing for the living liquid
they left for hills of sin instead.
But I was dying to dive again.
I needed to stretch the limbs
of my sand-scorched soul and swim
the full stretch of the sea with the One
who had once quenched me, and met me,
underwater, where I watched bubbles
of new beginning exit His mouth and
float in slow motion through my body
towards the rippling, light-streaked surface.
Some stay floundering on shores
too far from the unfettered deep end.
I found it fitting for the flesh to be
that fish in the coves too. You and I
both know this makes for skeletal imposters.
Had I really ever jumped in?
This time, the plunge felt permanent.
Descending into that gorgeous, incalculable
deep sparked a sort of resurgence in me,
those bubbles rising again, the warm current
returning, and in an instant, there He was,
swimming love in my direction.
I stay diving now. I haven’t resurfaced since.
The Three Coldest Days, Until…
"He is not here; for He is risen, as He said!" — Matthew 28:6
I’d like not to imagine
the three coldest days
this earth ever steeped in.
the silence on the skull.
the lashes of our Lord.
the weight of His grave.
Or that perpetual cloak of darkness
that spread a sheet of grieving tears
over a divided land now frozen in time.
What can be seen now
that the light of the world has
been blown out by the extinguishing
blizzard of criminals?
Desperate disciples feel it’s best to
stay hidden in the frost of exile now.
Soul life shifted direction in the cry
of His final dying moment though:
The silence that struck at the sixth hour
from Christ’s closing breath marked the
moment sin would ever hold the last word again.
Then,
the rock-splitting shake.
the re-emerging tombs.
the tear in the temple.
Did they know, those who knew Him,
the way grace would guarantee a healing?
compose a clean narrative because of this bleeding?
Or could they not defrost from His paralyzing
groans still echoing in the speechless distance?
To ask in honor of his body to be buried,
Jesus was laid to rest in a fresh garden bed,
his women waiting and weeping outside
of its snowed-in entrance.
The three coldest days on earth, until
the estranged stone.
the absent tomb.
the bodiless robes.
Look, He breathes!
The unconsumed flame rises.
The chill disappears.
A new covenant beams.
Alexis Ragan is a creative writer who delights in serving as a literary vessel for Christ’s light to dwell. She is convinced that art serves as a powerful instrument of worship that ultimately helps lead humanity back to God’s heart. As a seasoned ESL instructor who is passionate about global missions, she one day plans to blend her love for writing and teaching for the sake of the great commission.